TOFU HUT KOREAN BBQ: Seriously, it’s mostly meat.

It’s usually good news when you have to wait half an hour to get seated at 11 PM on a weekday. This is one of those cases.

Tofu Hut is an amazing value Korean BBQ place just west of the strip on the edge of what I call Asiatown. There are a ton of Korean BBQ places but few of them are cheap and some of them have not great quality food. Tofu Hut somehow has both of those things.

BUT NOT TOFU LOL

They stop seating just after 1 AM but they’re open 7 days a week. So if you feel like gorging yourself around midnight this is one of the better places to go. They have a sign-in sheet in the waiting area that is usually 4-5 groups deep since they have a limited number of cooking tables inside, but trust me: It’s worth it.

We get seated, give a few selections off of their menu and a flurry of appetizers arrive. Kimchi, pickles, potato pancake, fishcakes, noodles and a few others which are delicious though unidentifiable to my caucasian brain. All of them are solid and sate my intense hunger until the meat actually arrives.

Well that was delicious, check please!

A salad is also always brought out and honestly it’s one of the better simple salads I’ve ever had. A very light and tasty vinaigrette over tiny shreds of lettuce. Definitely nice with the fatty and spicy meat and sauce to come.

One thing that makes this place really separate from the other Korean BBQ places (other than the price) is the quality of their short ribs. Typically korean short ribs (kalbi) are not a great cut of meat with little bones with lots of gristle on them. This place serves you basically a big piece of steak instead and it’s definitely the best kalbi I can remember having. Any carnivore would approve. We also ordered marinated sliced pork, a steamed egg (weird name for a great dish, definitely order it), and marinated sliced ribeye.

The unholy triumvirate (plus salad).

The actual cooking is up to you and though I don’t have a problem with that I’m sure some will. This is pretty typical for a Korean BBQ place and helps keep the price down, though to be honest I wouldn’t want them cooking it here because the biggest problem with this place is that the service is seriously lacking. Drink refills, food orders, and table cleanups happen pretty slowly and it probably contributes to it taking so long to get a table. But at a certain point, the food is so good– I DON’T CARE GIVE ME THE TONGS.

Probably worth mentioning that this place is all you can eat. Yeah.

Imagine this picture 6 times in a row and that’s basically what this meal was like.

Tofu Hut has a pointless name and not great service but is definitely a mainstay in my evening eating. It’s definitely one of the more crave-able late night meals in town and is so insanely cheap at $20 per person after tax and tip that you can justify going a few times a week. Just make sure you’re prepared for a short wait to do so.